Fowlers Campground — Hotel in Mount Shasta

I recently stayed at Fowlers Campground in McCloud, California, and while the campground itself is beautiful, my experience was completely ruined by the camp host, Ronda. From the very first day, she was absolutely horrible and unbelievably rude. There was not a shred of “host” in her—only harassment toward my campsite and others around us.

Throughout my three-day stay, she repeatedly made up her own rules, none of which were posted or explained by the Forest Service. One of the worst moments was when she called the sheriff on me for quietly playing music from a tiny speaker—so quiet that lyrics couldn’t even be made out. Meanwhile, she would come storming into my site, screaming and shouting at the top of her lungs, which was easily a hundred times louder than any noise coming from me or my relatives.

The most ridiculous part was that she called the sheriff as we were in the middle of packing up and checked out. Not only did she waste my time, but she wasted the sheriff’s time as well. To their credit, when the deputies arrived, several other campers from multiple sites came over to talk to them about how hostile and out-of-control Ronda had been all weekend. It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one dealing with her insane behavior.

At one point, during one of her six rants over the course of my short stay, she showed up obviously intoxicated. She was so drunk that she actually injured herself—blowing out her knee on a rock—while in the middle of her tirade. Watching a “host” carry on like that was both sad and embarrassing for a place as nice as McCloud.

The bottom line: Fowlers Campground itself is gorgeous, but as long as Ronda is hosting, I cannot recommend it. She was hostile, unprofessional, and downright unstable, turning what should have been a relaxing camping trip into...

Beautiful campsite but the whole experience was ruined by the camp host. We had a reservation for one night on the Labor Day weekend and came to find our spot taken by someone. Came to the camp host to resolve this and she was initially eager to help and said she will remove their tent since those guys weren’t present there.

Things took a turn when she went to our site to remove their stuff and maybe she realized that she was the one who gave our reserved camp spot to someone. Instead of giving us reason as to why our spot was given away, she changed her tune. She started giving excuses that it is too much trouble to remove their stuff from the bear locker and recommended us to take another spot which was worse than our original one. When we refused she became hostile and aggressive asking us to take this spot or leave. She refused to help us and said since our reservation is only for 1 day she won’t get into the trouble of removing the other group. Mind you her only job is to keep people’s reservation and enforce the rules. She told us to take the spot she was giving use or she will call rangers on us. Having no choice we had to take the spot she gave us. She was downright hostile and insulting and I have never experienced such behavior ever at any other professional setting. The campground location is beautiful but not worth the trouble of having last minute issues with your reservation. Beware of this camp host next...

Sites are large, paved clean and near the three wonderful falls on the McCloud River. The nearby two outhouses to our centrally-located campsite were full and out-of-order.

We were required to use other outhouses quite a long walk away at either end of the campground. The outhouses were not cleaned or adequately re-stocked with toilet paper. Two more of the remaining four in use were soon to be closed due to being almost full to the toilet seats. On occasion the toilet paper of the four yet unclosed outhouses had run out.

The campground managers were not using the 48-hour response long-tern contract to have the outhouses pumped out per a later investigation with the Redding company that would be glad to respond immediately--if they were just called and authorized to service them.

Sadly, the campground hosts falsely blamed that Redding company for the problem when it was actually due to an apparent diversion of the collected funds from campground maintenance to some other purpose--thus no funds existed for outhouse maintenance.

I would caution against camping at this campground until sanitary conditions are restored, toilet paper has been acquired, and the almost full (and two full and already closed) outhouses are pumped and not so gross and filthy. The campground hosts might also need some training in broom operation for cleaning an outhouse, toilet paper...